Experience mysteries unravelled

[P3D]

I decided to use some scientific method to discover the hidden parameters behind the experience avarded to land leaders in combat. To collect experimental data , I started from the Fall Grün scenario. First, edited the INF characteristics to have SA/HA of 1, and created a savegame where I deleted all non-infantry units from both forces, put all the GER units in one province and chopped the force up to one-division corps. Then I edited the savegame to have the leaders the skills I want to look at, like MaxSkill from 0 to 9, skill from 0 to 9, and various rank. After analyzing the data, I even get some equations.

Note there might be errors in the figures, and some discrepancies might arise from the rounding and the rounding errors.

My observations are:

[list]
[*]EXP gain depends on the intensity of combat, leaders with the same characteristics
 can gain different amount of EXP in paralell combats- I didn't really bothered with it
[*]EXP is not affected by traits save the good Old Guard
[*]the promotion dates or the ideal rank in the leaderfiles also have no effect
[*]The only parameters effecting the rate of EXP growth are rank, skill and max skill level
[/list]

The rate of XP growth is in arbitraty units

All Skill 0, MaxSkill 9
MjGen LtGen Gen FM
100  66   33  10

This was clear to me, the ratios are 1, 2/3, 1/3, and 1/10.
 Other skill values provided the same results.

MjGen, Maxskill 9

Skill    0   1    2  3   4   5   6   7   8   9
Gain   100  80  31  16   9   5   2   1   1   0

This puzzled me, I couldn't think of any simple function to fit it.

MjGen, Skill=0

Maxskill  9    8    7    6   5    4    3   2   1 
Gain      100  80   63   48   35   24   9    4   1 

At least this was a clear square law, I din't even had to make a log-log fit.
Looking at the previous data, I saw that 31~63/2, 16~48/4, 9~35/4, etc. 
And this helped me to get the final equation, for [i]skill<=maxskill[/i]:

[i] Rate off EXP gain = (MaxSkill-Currentskill+1)^2/max(Currentskill,1)*RankFactor
[/i]

I let others toy with the naval and air EXP gain , or confirm my results.

 

[Mithel]

Excellent work P3D!

 

[Executor]

Thanks for finding this out for us. Guess this confirms my suspicion that you should never promote your leader to FM if you want them to ever gain another experience point.

 

[Young Hickory]

Good work, I've been waiting for someone to do this. I think the air/sea/land modifiers are in one of the config files, so that shouldn't be a big deal.

Really nice to have this cleared up.

Randy

 

[rich-love]

Wow - great work.

 

[unmerged(6766)]

Thanks for taking the time to do this. It shows how valuable it is to just have your generals slowly work their way up through the ranks, not promoting them unless you absolutely need them to command more troops.

 

[unmerged(38901)]

Quite an astonishing piece of work I have to say! Well done!

 

[thorpemark]

So.. would this suggest that the tactic is to fight with the high skill major generals commanding single units whenever practicable?

I have noticed that when I took over a puppet he had NO big stacks but had 8 or more single units in various provinces.

Isn't this inneffiecient and risky?

OR.. can this be mollified by backing them up with a field marshal commanding a nearby HQ?

 

[unmerged(18202)]

OR.. can this be mollified by backing them up with a field marshal commanding a nearby HQ?

This is what I'm wondering. Up to now my basic ground unit has been the three-division corps. However, if I have a buttload of leaders, why not just make sure I have one field marshal in each attack (or general, if it's a smaller attack), and then just hand each division to its own personal general? It'll be more hassle in terms of organization, but I really would like to see some of these hotshot panzer leaders rise in skill before they rise in rank, instead of having to promote them to lieutenant general in order to be useful to me.

I also wonder whether the fact of having a field marshal, no matter how incompetent or old guardish, isn't several times more important than that marshal's abilities. If all it takes is to give a few fossils their batons, guys who aren't going anywhere in my army, that I can do.

jkk

 

[MacDunne]

Appreciate your hard work P3D. I see that the manual (page 61) is then wrong about the affects of ideal rank. Alas another game feature that has not been implemented.

 

[unmerged(11633)]

What do you mean by

EXP gain depends on the intensity of combat, leaders with the same characteristics
can gain different amount of EXP in paralell combats- I didn't really bothered with it

Does this mean that the number of divisions present or being fought against affects experience gained?

ie, is the slow rate of gain of FMs compensated for by having more units under command?

 

[unmerged(8351)]

Does this mean that the number of divisions present or being fought against affects experience gained?

ie, is the slow rate of gain of FMs compensated for by having more units under command?

This is exactly how it *should* be ...as it is now you basically give up on someone ever gaining skill when you make them a FM. At the same time FM should gain skill more slowly so everyone doesn't just have 40 FM running around.

In my most recent game my invasion of Poland netted the 6 Generals I had there between 7-11 EXP points. My 3 FM gained between 1-4 EXP points in fairly heavy fighting (The conquest took 22 days).

Meanwhile my Lt Gen air force commanders gained 192 187 152 149 and 94 EXP points.

I think its pretty obvious that ground leader experience needs to be tweaked up and air leader experience needs to be tweaked down. At the current rate Rommel, Manstein, and Guderian *might* gain a skill point by the end of the war if I'm lucky. Meanwhile Kesselring has already gained 1 skill point in 20 days of bombing runs...

 

[unmerged(18202)]

I think its pretty obvious that ground leader experience needs to be tweaked up and air leader experience needs to be tweaked down. At the current rate Rommel, Manstein, and Guderian *might* gain a skill point by the end of the war if I'm lucky. Meanwhile Kesselring has already gained 1 skill point in 20 days of bombing runs...

Unless, of course, you happen to station them somewhere the AI likes to bomb during the Sitzkrieg. Great way to build their skills! When I saw how dearly the French loved to strafe Freiburg, I made sure to give its commands to people I cared about.

Since we're on about leaders, and have brought up the invasion of Poland, maybe I can pose a direct question about field marshals. Let's imagine my invasion of Poland consists of the following (corps are the traditional 3 divisions):

1st Army: 4 infantry corps, 1 panzer corps, 1 HQ
2nd Army: 4 infantry corps, 1 panzer corps
3rd Army: 2 infantry corps, 2 panzer corps, 1 mountain corps, 1 HQ

All three armies will advance due east. 1st Army will link up with a corps in Koenigsberg, objective Warsaw. 2nd Army will make for Lodz and Radom. 3rd Army will drive toward Lwow, with a portion wheeling south to capture Cracow. Rarely will two armies cooperate in an assault--there is too much to do, and I'm in a hurry. (I have just learned the hard way that bringing Nationalist Spain to alliance before the outbreak of war was not really in Madrid's best interests, and now I'm going to have to roll on France early or my allies are in trouble.)

Do I definitely want/need a field marshal with each Army?

Does he need to be commanding a corps, or should he be assigned to an HQ in the same area? Could he be assigned to, say, a lone cavalry division detailed to serve as his mobile command post?

If my highest ranking officer with each army were a general, am I going to suffer for that with all of them, or only with 2nd Army that lacks an HQ?

jkk

 

[jonnyincognito]

SO, let me get this straight...

Experience gained is lower the higher the rank of the officer? So the best bet is to have a field marshal with lt generals under him until the lt. generals get to the experience you want them to be before you promote them up to FM? This is very diffrent from HoI 1 then!

Gain experience before promotions is what this seems to suggest, right?


Joshua

 

[P3D]

What do you mean by
Does this mean that the number of divisions present or being fought against affects experience gained?
ie, is the slow rate of gain of FMs compensated for by having more units under command?

Well, I haven't checked this (more units), it's up to you . But in two paralell test combat one FM got 7EXP, the other got 10. There were different numbers of enemy troops in the two combat.

Ideal rank has no effect. If you look in the savegame files, the idealrank is not saved. The date of promotion doesn't have any effect either.

The AI, of course, cheats with the promotions (no skill decrease), so he will have Manstein and such as a 5-skill general in 1939 - you could have only if you start the 1939 scenario.

 

[unmerged(3221)]

SO, let me get this straight...

Experience gained is lower the higher the rank of the officer? So the best bet is to have a field marshal with lt generals under him until the lt. generals get to the experience you want them to be before you promote them up to FM? This is very diffrent from HoI 1 then!

Gain experience before promotions is what this seems to suggest, right?


Joshua

Forget about FM. Use Generals instead.

You can have 9 div attacking offensively with a General and 12 with a FM. With a HQ in or adjacent, that doubles to 18 and 24.

The only advantage of FM is the 3 or 6 additional divisions that can attack with full effectiveness. Since you lose a skill level when you promote, any divisions under that FM would lose -5 in combat.

You can always promote one low ranking leader to FM, give him one div, and include him in the offensive. Then you still get the 12 or 24 capacity for that offensive. But as a general rule it's better to just keep your best leaders as Generals rather than going for that small increase in command capacity.

 

[unmerged(3221)]

maybe I can pose a direct question about field marshals. Let's imagine my invasion of Poland consists of the following (corps are the traditional 3 divisions):

1st Army: 4 infantry corps, 1 panzer corps, 1 HQ
2nd Army: 4 infantry corps, 1 panzer corps
3rd Army: 2 infantry corps, 2 panzer corps, 1 mountain corps, 1 HQ

All three armies will advance due east. 1st Army will link up with a corps in Koenigsberg, objective Warsaw. 2nd Army will make for Lodz and Radom. 3rd Army will drive toward Lwow, with a portion wheeling south to capture Cracow. Rarely will two armies cooperate in an assault--there is too much to do, and I'm in a hurry. (I have just learned the hard way that bringing Nationalist Spain to alliance before the outbreak of war was not really in Madrid's best interests, and now I'm going to have to roll on France early or my allies are in trouble.)

Do I definitely want/need a field marshal with each Army?

Does he need to be commanding a corps, or should he be assigned to an HQ in the same area? Could he be assigned to, say, a lone cavalry division detailed to serve as his mobile command post?

If my highest ranking officer with each army were a general, am I going to suffer for that with all of them, or only with 2nd Army that lacks an HQ?

jkk

The army without a HQ would suffer penalties. The others would be fine if a HQ was in or adjacent to the battle. Your first and third armies have 15 div and an HQ so a General could lead them when he was part of the attack.

For your middle arm without an HQ, you have problems. There are 15 div. A General can command 9 in the offensive and a FM 12 in the offensive. You can include a FM with one div on the offensive, but that means that only 11 other divisions will fight at full effectiveness. The other three should not participate in the offensive (rest them to regain org). If you limit yourself to a General leading the attack, then only 9 div (3 corps) should attack while resting the other six.

 

[unmerged(12303)]

I decided to use some scientific method to discover the hidden parameters behind the experience avarded to land leaders in combat.

Great work - can I add this to the land eff faq crediting you?

Thanks

F

 

[unmerged(14035)]

Question to Fiendix and P3D: would it be OK if I included the info you have researched and made it into a printable chart (pdf-format)?

All of this is very usefull, and I'm a total chart freak who loves to have all kinds of info available while I play the game (without having to alt-tab to look at my browser), and that's why I like making these charts. It might also be usefull to other players as game aid.

 

[unmerged(12303)]

I have no problems with that but please note that my faq is still not complete...

F